Effie Awarded for BMW S1000RR Marketing Campaign

Although the 2012 BMW S1000RR was unveiled this week, the existing BMW Superbike continues to generate interest and awards. Munich-based Serviceplan Agency Group along with BMW Motorrad have won a coveted and highly-respected Gold Effie for their ‘Welcome to Planet Power’ marketing campaign to support the RR’s launch activities in 2009 and 2010.

The Effie awards (short for ‘effectiveness’) are given in recognition of the most efficient marketing campaigns for a variety of products and services. Originally started in 1968 in the USA by the American Marketing Association, these annual awards have expanded globally with over 40 national and regional Effie programs now operating worldwide.

The German Effie awards were established in 1981 and this year celebrated 30 years of operation with a glitzy awards ceremony in Berlin. Winning Gold in the Automotive category was the Serviceplan group’s Welcome to Planet Power campaign, created especially for BMW Motorrad’s entry into the Supersport motorcycle market. The campaign for the launch of this new superbike convinced the jury to award it top honors, not only because of the successful combination of creative and media strategies, but also because of the impressive sales figures generated by this move into a completely new market segment for the brand.

An area traditionally dominated by the Japanese manufacturers for decades, the RR turned the Supersports segment on its head by grabbing a massive 21.7 percent market share in its first full year on sale, propelling BMW to the top of this category. This also helped the brand buck the trend of a shrinking motorcycle market by actually increasing market share during the recent challenging global economic conditions.

One of the many successful examples of this campaign mentioned was the ‘tablecloth’ viral video, which has produced nearly five million views to date on YouTube, helping generate additional awareness of the BMW Motorrad brand and its products to a wide-reaching audience of media-savvy consumers. The Mythbusters TV show even included the tablecloth video in their program.

BMW's "Dinner with RR" video is a YouTube sensation.

In Berlin to represent the BMW Group and collect the Gold Effie award was BMW Motorrad’s Director of Sales and Marketing Hans de Visser, who said, “Our marketing team is extremely proud about this award and the recognition it offers for all the hard work carried out to support our new entry into the sports bike segment. The RR has made a serious impression in this category and with the imminent arrival of the new model, we expect equally high levels of interest. ”

Also in Berlin for the award ceremony was Stefan Schütte, Managing Director of Serviceplan Campaign 1, who commented, “It really is a great honor for us to win this Effie award because we have beaten some of the biggest consumer and automotive companies with annual advertising budgets running into tens of millions of Euros. The RR Superbike is such an impressive product that it was our challenge to match its technical brilliance with a suitable creative strategy that would not only get our message across to committed sports bike fans, but also appeal in a truly inspirational way to non-motorcyclists.”